Carbonation
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Saruhiko's not surprised when Awashima goes on speaking; it's not until he hears what she has to say that the shock hits. 'There's a visitor for you.'" Saruhiko gets a birthday visitor and a gift.


Saruhiko doesn't have any personal issues with Awashima. He gets along with her as well as he gets along with anybody, which equates to some level of tolerance on both their parts, and the fact that she's usually the one to convey orders to him has no influence on that as a general rule. He does work for Scepter 4, after all, it's his _job_ to be useful, and even if he finds the work sometimes frustrating and often tedious it's not Awashima's fault that she's the one bearing the message.

All of that is true, and has been true, and still is true. But just at the moment, with his attention entirely held by the array of information on the screen in front of him, the clear "Fushimi-kun" from the doorway is enough to spike irritation strong enough it borders on anger down his spine.

"What?" Saruhiko asks past gritted teeth and without looking up.

This is part of their communication process. If Awashima is carrying some trivial order, she'll wait until later and come back when Saruhiko is less immediately and obviously busy. But if it's something important - and come to think of it, Saruhiko's never known it to _not_ be important - she'll carry on, talk right over his frustration as if she hasn't heard it at all to convey the message. So Saruhiko's not surprised when she goes on speaking; it's not until he hears what she has to say that the shock hits.

"There's a visitor for you."

Saruhiko looks up from his screen at that, since his tone alone can't adequately express the complete incredulity necessary for his reply. "I'm _busy_ ," he says, as if it needs to be said, as if he's not _always_ busy. "Tell them to come back later."

"I'm not carrying messages for you," Awashima says. She hasn't even looked up from the stack of papers in her hands to see Saruhiko's expression.

"You just did," Saruhiko points out, but Awashima is turning away already, giving him her back instead of her attention as she steps out of the room with the surprisingly long strides that are always impossible to catch up to without the loss of dignity necessitated by running. Saruhiko growls, a low hiss of irritation, and kicks back from his desk hard enough that his chair hits the wall behind him before it stops. He doesn't look back at the dent the impact has left; he just leaves the chair where it is, pushes to his feet and locks his screen in one movement and makes for the door with his rising anger clear across his face. The stairs he takes two at a time, a risk on the too-fast descent, but the slamming impact of his feet hitting each one is satisfying in a dark, vicious way, the pain of the landing jolting through his knees a relief for the frustration in his veins. By the time he reaches the landing he's seething, irritation at the interruption darkening the world around him, until when he drags the door open it's with a curse instead of welcome on his lips.

"What the hell do you-" he starts before he's seen the decals on the jacket, the shine of sunlight off the metal of a skateboard, and his words die to instant silence in his throat as Misaki turns towards him, looking as startled as if he weren't expecting the other's arrival.

"Saru," he blurts, eyes wide on shock. "I didn't think you'd actually come down."

"I didn't know it was _you_ ," Saruhiko answers, twisting the pronoun into poison to imply that he wouldn't have answered if he had known. It's not true - he would have taken the stairs three at a time if he had known Misaki was waiting for him - but it's the bite of the words he wants more than their sincerity, the cut that digs deep enough to crease hurt into Misaki's forehead before it hardens into anger behind his eyes.

"Fuck you, Saru," Misaki says, but he doesn't sound angry enough, sounds more resigned than frustrated. "I shouldn't have come in the first place."

"Why did you?" Saruhiko asks, curiosity blurting itself to sound past his lips. There's no sign of a weapon, not even the tension of adrenaline in Misaki's shoulders; picking a fight here doesn't make sense anyway, not when they'd barely get five minutes before Awashima or maybe Munakata himself would appear to pull them apart. "You don't belong here, Misaki."

Misaki rolls his eyes, huffs a huge lungful of air into irritation that Saruhiko would find offensive if he weren't so busy being intensely confused. "You're a real idiot, you know?" Misaki turns, pivoting to face Saruhiko fully as he wasn't before, and Saruhiko recognizes the glint of sunlight off chill-damp glass a moment before Misaki lifts the soda bottle into clear view.

"Happy birthday," Misaki says, sounding weirdly soft, like his voice has fallen back in time over the span of years, before Scepter 4, before Homra, before _Mikoto_ , when there was just Saruhiko and Misaki and the bite of cold carbonation on hot summer days. "Saruhiko."

The shiver that runs through Saruhiko has an edge to it, the chill of adrenaline promising heat in its wake; it's enough to give him warning to duck his head, to close his mouth, to hide the sudden damp at his eyes in shadow and the tension in his throat in silence. He doesn't realize his hand is lifting until his fingers touch his shoulder, dip under the open edge of his shirt to press hard at the familiar scar there, the ridges of a long-past burn to remind him of reality, to pull him back to the present and to Misaki standing in front of him with a glass bottle in his fingers.

"I don't want it," Saruhiko says, staring at Misaki's fingers instead of his face, hearing the weird warble of sound fitting around the tension in his throat. He blinks hard, pushes harder against his shoulder. "It's too cold for it right now."

"Don't be stupid," Misaki growls, his voice wobbling far more audibly than Saruhiko's, jumping into the high, desperate range he hits when he's losing control of his emotions.

"I have work to do," Saruhiko attempts, but his shoulders are folding in on themselves, his whole body curving in under the impossible weight of nostalgia bearing down on him.

"Shut up," Misaki says, and there's the sound of a skateboard hitting pavement before he's grabbing at Saruhiko's wrist, dragging the other's touch away from his scarred shoulder and towards him instead. His hold is too tight, his fingers digging in hard against the cuff at Saruhiko's wrist. Saruhiko can feel the heat of his body like the barrier of cloth isn't even there. "It's your _birthday_. Just take five fucking minutes and drink a soda with me, Saru."

Saruhiko can't answer. He can barely breathe around the knot in his throat; it's more than he can fathom to produce intelligible words around it. But he doesn't drag his hand free, and he doesn't retreat into the building, and when Misaki lets him go after a moment so he can retrieve his dropped skateboard Saruhiko waits for him, stands still and quiet and with his shoulders hunched into shadow until Misaki gestures with the bottle for him to follow to sit against the sunlit corner of the building.

The soda is sweeter than Saruhiko remembers, the bubbles ticklish on his tongue and catching into his nose when he swallows wrong, and the conversation is more stilted, forced around the gap of years and anger too deeply ingrained in them both to be washed away by a simple birthday gift. But the sunlight is just as bright as it always used to be, Misaki's shoulder is just as close to his, and when Saruhiko leans in to fit his mouth to Misaki's, the chill flavor of the soda fits between their lips just as it always used to.


End file.
